Inferring the nature of the most recent common ancestor of plants

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Approximately 500 million years ago, plant life conquered a barren terrestrial habitat. All plant life thriving on the surface of Earth today is derived from that singular event. Based on fossil, genomic and trait data that has become available during the first MAdLand funding period, we will perform state-of-the-art phylogenomics and ancestral state reconstruction. Thus, we aim to infer the evolution of plant key traits before and after the transition to land. These analyzes are expected to much increase our understanding of the nature and timeline of evolutionary adaptive events to a drastically different environment, allowing plants to live on land. The project aims at unravelling the enigmatic nature of the most recent common ancestor of plants.